A Big Step Toward a Silicon Quantum Computer: Control of nuclear spin is key to a practical silicon quantum computer

Image: Tony Melov Artist’s impression of a single phosphorus atom, placed in the vicinity of a silicon transistor. The atom is irradiated by microwaves to write quantum information on the spin of its nucleus [arrow]. Quantum computers could more easily become a reality if they incorporated the silicon semiconductor processing used by the modern electronics industry. Physicists in Australia have recently taken a new step toward that vision by reading and writing the nuclear spin state of a single phosphorus atom implanted in silicon. In a breakthrough reported in the 18 April edition of the journal Nature , physicists have finally achieved an idea first proposed in 1998 by Bruce Kane , a physicist at the University of Maryland, in College Park. Such success could lead to quantum computers based on the same silicon-processing technology used for computer chips. “What we are ...